Habitat Fragmentation Impacts Arthropod Species

This activity guides the analysis of a published scientific figure from a study that explored habitat fragmentation and corridors in a model ecosystem. 

Human activities are breaking many wild habitats into smaller, more isolated fragments. Connecting these fragments to other habitats using corridors may help more species survive. In this study, scientists created fragments and corridors in patches of moss, which are habitats for tiny arthropods called mites. The figure shows the number of mite species found in different moss fragments, which varied in their connectivity to a larger moss patch (M). Some fragments had no corridors (I), some had uninterrupted corridors (C), and some had broken corridors (B).

The “Educator Materials” document includes a captioned figure, background information, graph interpretation, and discussion questions. The “Student Handout” includes a captioned figure and background information. 

The “Resource Google Folder” link directs to a Google Drive folder of resource documents in the Google Docs format. Not all downloadable documents for the resource may be available in this format. The Google Drive folder is set as “View Only”; to save a copy of a document in this folder to your Google Drive, open that document, then select File → “Make a copy.” These documents can be copied, modified, and distributed online following the Terms of Use listed in the “Details” section below, including crediting BioInteractive.